I’ve been waiting (not so) patiently for our cake tasting ever since we made the appointment back in October (or, to be honest, since we got engaged). I mean…it’s cake. It’s hard to go wrong.

Unless you’re like Foxy and don’t eat sweets, cake included. Needless to say, this was not his favorite wedding related task. (Not to mention, we combined it with a flower consultation on the same day—poor Foxy, he’s a trooper!) However, as luck would have it, Foxy Mama was able to make the drive down from NY to meet up with us again, as she did for our linens/room assignment meeting. Having her there was a total life saver.

But back to the cake: one of the awesome things about our venue is that said cake is included in the catering cost. They commission it out to a wonderful, little local place called Desserts by Rita; thank goodness, too, because I really didn’t feel like having to research local bakers and be continuously shocked at how much people can charge per slice or as a cake cutting fee. The easier, the better, I say! I was ready to get this party started.

First things first:

flavors and the official tasting.

If you ask me, they were ALL delicious. Just.. beyond.

I clearly needed a minute alone with fiesta that was happening in my mouth.

I think we did a pretty good job, seeing as my mom and I were the only two really “tasting.” To be fair, Foxy did have a tiny bite of the red velvet, though he seemed none too thrilled. It’s OK. More for me!

Seeing as we’ll be having a three tier cake, we decided to do different flavors on each tier. The bottom/largest tier will be the raspberry devils cake (you have NO IDEA how good that stuff is), raspberry icing, and vanilla cake. The middle tier will be lemon cake, vanilla icing, vanilla cake, and the top/smallest tier will be red velvet cake with vanilla icing (Foxy’s choice). I’m so very pleased and so very excited about it all! The best part was that Foxy Mama treated us to a take home treat of cupcakes in all the flavors we chose.

You will notice how I already ate half of the vanilla cupcake, as well as took a swipe of icing off of each of the others. It was a good breakfast, let me tell you.

Now for the tricky part…what will this flavor explosion of a cake look like? I have of course been collecting inspiration pictures for months, liking this and loving that but never really making a commitment to anything. I kept leaning towards the more simplistic cakes with textured icing.

Image via The Bridal District

Image via Style Me Pretty | Photo by KT Merry

Image via My Sweet and Saucy | Photo by Frenzel Photography

However, I wasn’t quite sold on just having a textured cake with a flower or two on it. While I adore the look, I was just looking for something.. more. Which is exactly what I found on Pinterest, the night before our cake tasting.

Image via My Sweet and Saucy | Photo by Gabriel Ryan Photography

How unbelievably cute is this cake?! I think I love it even more because the petals are conveniently more or less our colors. When I saw this picture, I just swooned. And I just knew. It was seriously like the feeling I had when I tried on my dress. Is that weird…?

Either way, I am thrilled to announce that our cake will ultimately have the best of both worlds.. a nice, textured buttercream icing with colorful fondant petals on each tier. Now to decide on a cake topper!

How did you decide on the look of your cake? Did you eventually “just know,” or was it a process?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

There’s no point in dragging this out. Yesterday, I wrote about trying to decide between cupcakes and mini cupcakes for our wedding. It all sounded so cute and fun, but we changed our minds. We want cake. Wait. I want cake.

This is one of those situations where Mr. Mink has been totally easy-going. He doesn’t care if we have cupcakes or a traditional cake. He just wants to get to the part where we have a couple tastings! Every time I started taking about cake and cupcakes, Mr. Mink would joke that we were going to have his mother’s red velvet cake for our wedding cake and we could smoosh my mother’s chocolate chip cookie fingers (almost shaped like biscotti) into the sides. I finally stopped talking and just looked at the inspiration pictures I saved to my Pinterest boards. Almost every image was of a cake.

I think I was swayed by two things. First, the pictures of couples cutting their cakes are appealing to me. I know we could cut a one tiered cake or a cupcake, but amidst the non-traditional decisions we’ve made, I like the idea of doing something traditional. Second, I love the variety of cake designs. Some of the cakes out there are works of art.

From Style Me Pretty / Cake by Tallant House / Photo by Red Box Pictures

Between us, we know quite a few people who make cakes, cupcakes, and all sorts of sweet treats. Deciding against cupcakes simplified the dessert decision in a big way. Our list of bakers to investigate shortened dramatically.

I decided that it would be best to show potential bakers some pictures of cakes I liked and realized that there’s another decision to be made: fondant vs. buttercream.

I’m sure you know the pros and cons of using fondant. Fondant provides a smooth, even finish. It’s a great base for flowers or intricate designs. Some say they hate the taste of fondant, but I read that there are different kinds of fondant. Apparently, the most readily available brand is the one that doesn’t taste great.

From the Mod Wedding Blog / Cake by the Vanilla Bake Shop / Photo by John & Joseph Photography

Buttercream, on the other hand, is soft and often allows for texture on cakes. Plenty of bakers can smooth buttercream into looking a lot like fondant, though. I think most people agree that buttercream tastes pretty great.

Cake by Maggie Austen

I loved many of the sleek, simple cakes I saw that were covered in fondant. I definitely wanted something that looked sweet and not too fussy.

Cake by Maggie Austen

I loved the idea of being able to add a design that might get lost on a buttercream cake.

Cake by Sweet and Saucy

On the other hand, I find the texture on buttercream cakes so appealing. I think they look romantic and they’d fit into the look of my vineyard wedding beautifully. In most cases, it seems as though buttercream cakes are less expensive.

From Love and Lavender / Cake 1 by Sweet & Saucy / Cakes 2 and 3 by Maggie Austen

I might wait until I see some local bakers’ portfolios to make a final decision on this one, but I’m curious about taste.

Have you had a good tasting fondant cake? Do you have a preference when it comes to fondant vs. buttercream?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

It’s become a tradition here at Snippet & Ink to share some of my favorite things from the year’s inspiration boards with you before saying hello to the New Year. Just something simple to wind down 2011. First up, seven of my favorite cakes from 2011 inspiration boards.

Originally posted in Board #510: French Lace, photo by Elizabeth Messina.

Originally posted in Board #523: Our Wedding, from Martha Stewart Weddings.

Originally posted in Board #527: Black Raspberry, cake by Seven Spoons.

Originally posted in Board #535: Caramel & Cream, cake and stand by Herriott Grace.

Originally posted in Board #537: Gold and Moody Blue, from Martha Stewart Weddings.

Originally posted in Board #543: Glitterfest, from Martha Stewart Weddings.

Originally posted in Board #538: Black and White Ball, from Fete NY.

See all my other favorites right here.

This article was originally posted onSnippet & Ink.

So I started telling you about my oh-so-lovely shower, where I wasn’t only showered with gifts—but certainly with the care and affection of family and friends…

But I didn’t share the deets with you! Shame on me for teasing you and then falling off the planet. Although it is by no means an excuse, my day job has got me bouncing around the country non-stop—on top of a wedding that is almost here!!

So let me get back to business, bees!

Just for a refresher of the invites were my (yes my) labor of love…

Source for the Uhh-dorable milk and cookies graphic: Jess Fink

So besides telling you about the menu in the “Mr. Sweet Cream & Mrs. Sweet Cream Go Together Like…” themed shower… Let me show you!!!

The scene of the beautiful presents!

Appetizers that made everyone’s lips smack!

Aunt Sweets made little cut outs of me & Mr. Sweets to adorn the bar…

with wine, beer, punch & homemade lemonade (with vodka to add yourself, of course!)

A “Cheese & Cracker” bar… Because like the sign says…

Me & Mr. Sweets…we go together!

A sandwich bar… with little signs like “Mr. Sweets & Miss Sweets Go Together Like…

Ham & Cheese…BBQ Pulled Pork & Apple Slaw…” You name it—it was there!

The deviled eggs with bacon was not only perfect for “Bacon & Eggs,”

but I don’t think I can have deviled eggs sans bacon ever again!

Look how sweet those signs are! BM Sweets wanted the font to go perfect with the invites!

And the cherished cookie bar! The crew had vintage milk bottles filled with milk and they thought nobody would drink it… And had to keep refilling them(!)

• Cold veggies & dip
• Cheese & cracker bar
• Chips & salsa
• An AMAZING salad bar (with a bread & butter bar—yes…all different breads AND spreads!)

Sandwiches like: Pork chops & apple slaw sliders, chicken salad with grapes & walnuts, turkey & cranberry sandwiches with a mayo spread, apple & cheese open faced sandwiches…

And the cookie bar!! The cookies! Snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, oatmeal, sugar cookies & PB&J cookies all were devoured. And for those that weren’t? The leftover take home boxes that will be used for the wedding served as the perfect container for a take home treat!

My mouth is now drooling looking back on all of this.

What was your favorite thing to feast on at your shower? Did your crew go above and beyond your wildest dreams???

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Cake artist Alexandria Pellegrino and pastry chef Jessica Smith are a heavenly pairing when it comes to dazzling cakes that are tailor made for a wedding or special event.  Even Nicole Richie called on the masters of Cake Opera Co. to create her towering, gold-trimmed Versailles-inspired red velvet wedding cake.  Taking inspirations from Christian Lacroix’s Spring 2008 Runway Collection and milk glass of the 1920s to Morretto Masks and chinoserie style wallpaper, the Toronto duo from Cake Opera Co. definitely know how to deliver a truly divine piece of cake.

This article was originally posted onBridezilla.

I am not a typical cake eater. I do like it occasionally, but it has to be certain kinds. I also am one of those weird texture eaters who does not like soggy breads, so some cakes make me gag—literally. So instead of taking the chance of getting some kind of soggy cake that I really won’t like, Mr. D and I decided to go the cupcake route!

Naturally, making the decision to have cupcakes was the easy one—the actual choosing of the cupcake flavors was completely different. I knew that we needed some kind of option that was plain and would be well received by everyone. So I suggested vanilla cupcakes. Mr. D immediately answered with the need for chocolate cupcakes. (He is the chocolate lover in our relationship.) So we are doing four types of cupcakes. Two plain kinds (chocolate and vanilla) and one that reflects each of us.

For my cupcake, I looked no further than my favorite baking blog: Bakerella. She had posted a recipe that I knew had my name written aaaall over it! Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the snickerdoodle duo cupcake:

Yes that is a tower of cupcake, frosting, and cookie. / Image via Bakerella

My favorite cookies in the entire world are snickerdoodles, so when I found this recipe, it was the the very obvious choice for me. I mean, how delicious does it look (and believe me, it tastes as good as it looks)? Yummo!

Mr. D was very specific about what he wanted. He wanted a mint-chocolate cupcake. After scouring the internet for recipes, we found one from the blog “Your Cup of Cake” that he loves and is so delicious:

Image via Your Cup of Cake

We are doing a cupcake tower with a small, single-tier cake on the top so we have something to cut at the reception. Now I already know what flavor I want—a lemon cake with a raspberry and white chocolate ganache. It’s seriously heavenly and so delicious! As far as decorating said cake, I was thinking of doing just a simple buttercream frosting, a lace ribbon around the bottom of the tier, a little pearl dust, and our adorable kitty cake topper (whichever one we chose, of course). Something a little like this, but just a single, tiny tier:

Image via KayB’s Cakes

Now how are we going to pull off this huge baking feat? Mr. D’s mom, my mom, and my grandmother have offered to help with the baking! We will probably split up the different kinds of cupcakes and let everyone take one on! I know I would not be able to do this if it weren’t for the help of the incredible women in my life. I know once more of Mr. D’s family gets wind of this plan, they will also start to offer their ovens and baking skills! I can’t wait to see the cake table the day of and see the reactions of those who will eat these delicious treats!

What are you doing for your wedding dessert? A traditional cake? Something else?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

(If you’re in the DC area and you haven’t been to the bakery that this post is named after, go immediately! I recommend Niel’s Hat Trick, but you really can’t go wrong. My mouth is watering just thinking about it… YUM!)

Back in April when I mentioned that we were going to have to find a new bakery since my baker friend had a bun in the oven? No? Well, now you know. I immediately went about emailing a bunch of bakeries in the area to get a feel for pricing, flavors and if they even had the availability to take on another wedding for early September. After some shocking prices, sadness that my favorite bakery no longer does wedding cakes and a surprising number of bakeries just never getting back to me, we set up tastings with three: Amy Beck Cake Designs, Luscious Layers Bakery and one other that I’m not naming because it wasn’t awesome, let’s just call it #3.

In true Miss Bacon fashion, the appointments are all within a week of each other so that we can make easy comparisons without too many notes. The first tasting was at Amy Beck and it was ahhhhhhhhmazing. She didn’t ask us what flavors we liked or what we wanted to try, so when we got there, we were greeted by a table filled with all the favors of cake and frosting that she offered. Talk about a great first impression!

The first thing we did was talk through the look and feel of our wedding; I shared our inspiration board, pictures of our invitations, the flowers, my dress, the girls’ dresses, the guys’ tuxes and our little cake topper. This blogging thing has made me VERY well prepared for these kinds of meetings. Then we talked through our preferences with cakes – did we like round or square cakes; tall and skinny tiers or short and stout tiers; did we want them traditionally stacked or wonky and playfully stacked? Lastly, we talked through our vision of what the design would be and she left us to the multitude of flavors to taste away while she worked up a sketch.

Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom SUGAR HIGH!!

Menu of flavors, and we tried every one!

One word: OMGtheflavorsaresoamazinghowdidwelivethislongwithouteverexperiencingthesecakes?!?! We mixed and matched just about every flavor from pistachio cake with hazelnut buttercream to devil’s food with raspberry buttercream and chocolate truffle ganache. Everything was amazing, even the plain ol’ chocolate and vanilla cakes with coordinating buttercreams. This lady knows what she’s doing. After being sufficiently sugared, she came back over with a great sketch that was pretty much everything we asked for and promised that we’d be getting a full quote in the next couple day and after that, we would start talking grooms cake. We left giddy with sugar and so pleased that our first official tasting went so well.

Our last two tastings were scheduled for the next weekend, and FMIL and FSFIL (Future Stepfather in Law) Bacon were going to be in town, so I did my due diligence and confirmed with the bakeries that we were cool to bring them along. Both bakeries were ok with it and we were off to the tastings!

The first stop was Luscious Layers Bakery and we sat down at a beautiful table with the owner to look through pictures and talk through our wedding and our cake design preferences. Once we had gotten through the nitty gritty details, Ashley set off to work on a sketch and some rough pricing and out came the CAKE! Unlike Amy Beck, Luscious Layers asks for you to go to their website and pick out the 4-5 flavor combinations that are most enticing to you and bake mini cakes for you to try. So we were each presented a plate with 5 slices of cake that we had and picked ourselves: Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting, Coconut Cake with Coconut Cream, Champagne Cake with Strawberries and Whipped cream, Pistachio with Cannoli Cream and Butter Cake with Praline Cream.

We each got one of these! Bad Miss Bacon, I took bites before I took pictures…

So yummy that I wanted some of his. He clearly didn’t notice and that’s why he’s a keeper!

The cakes were all really good, but I couldn’t get the Almond cake from Amy Beck out of my mind, so I asked if they had any on hand that we could taste to get a feel for it. She went right to the bakery case and crabbed a cupcake for us all to try. Um, it was pine! We talked a bit more about some of the other things we want to have at the wedding like the sweet table, and skirted around the grooms cake since the groom was beside me, then happily went on our way.

After a quick pit stop at 7-11 for some salty chips to break up alllllll the sugar we were having, we were on to #3. We ended up being about 15 minutes early to the appointment, but they happily took us in and sat us at the table… then scrounged for two more chairs since there were four of us (like I emailed them about before). One of the ladies on staff came over and chatted with us briefly about what we were looking for, since we’d had this conversation a couple of times, we knew exactly what we wanted, then she took my inspiration board and photos and brought us cake! This bakery hadn’t asked us for flavors so we expected something like what Amy Beck did for us – lots of flavors to taste and maybe mix and match. Oh no. This bakery brought us one plate of thinly sliced cakes in whatever flavors they had on hand: Lemon with Lemon frosting , Vanilla with Orange frosting , Chocolate with Vanilla frosting, Red velvet with Cream Cheese frosting , Chocolate with Raspberry frosting and Lemon with Vanilla frosting and Raspberry jam. This would be a good time to note that I don’t like lemon baked goods of any variety and I’m not a big fan of orange baked goods either.

You want all four of us to share this? Really?

We each took a tiny bit of the different flavors and stared at each other as the woman came back over and asked the Baconator to take a walk so that we could discuss his groom’s cake before she could give us a quote. Really, lady, you just asked the groom to leave?? He obliged and she proceeded to chastise me for not bringing pictures of what I wanted his cake to look like. I just started sputtering random scenes from Star Wars to get her on her way. She then asked for our budget for both cakes, I told her and she guffawed at me. “Well, with that budget we might be able to give you a discount since you’re getting two cakes. We’ll still have to max it out and that won’t include tax or delivery. Oh, and this quote is only good for 3 days. Have you picked flavors that you’d like?” Thankfully, the Baconator quickly returned and we could get the heck out of that shop. We’d had enough of them and their lemon cakes (not to mention the woman yacking away on the phone and the other lady berating her employee right in front of us).

Did you have wildly different experiences with some vendors? How did you handle it?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

I can barely contain myself…tomorrow we have our cake tasting!!! I can’t wait to see what amazing flavours we’ll get to try. I was reading through our baker’s 2011 wedding-cake flavours, and they all sound so amazing. Chocolate raspberry…double chocolate…pumpkin Philly…red velvet (my personal favourite)…raspberry tuxedo…vanilla passion fruit…and that is only a handful of the flavours she makes!

In preparation for our tasting, I’ve been scouring pictures of cakes so we can not only talk about how our cake will taste, but also about how it will look. Here are a few of my favourites!

I really like the tall proportions of the layers in this cake. Plus the white texture and “buttons” running up and down are adorable!

Photo by Antonis Achilleos / Cake by Cake Alchemy / Image via The Knot

Once again, I love the white-on-white texture of this cake that I found on Style Me Pretty. It is so simple and gorgeous!

Photo by Jensen Larson Photography / Image via Style Me Pretty

And finally, I really love this cake! It is on a very similar ruffled milk-glass cake stand to the one we’ll be using. I really like how the cake has a hobnail texture that echoes the hobnails on the cake stand. So pretty!

Photo by Kristen Jensen Photography / Image via The Knot / Cake by Ana Parzych Custom Cakes, Chesire, CT

I can’t wait to taste everything and to share the inspiration photos that I’ve gathered so far. Hopefully our baker will be inspired, too!

Were you deliriously excited about tasting cake?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

I just wanted to pop in to say that the Taffy recaps will be making a comeback soon! This past year has been very crazy for us, as we only saw each other on the weekends due to my US / Canadian commute! Well, before the recaps continue, I wanted to share some exciting news with you: we decided to take the plunge and move to Canada!

image via Mah-Shop

Yes, after 13 months of commuting, we are living under the same roof all week long!

Before the move, the commute was taking up too much time to work on the recaps. Since we decided to move in November, we have been up to our ears beginning the immigration process, and were busy moving our household here and looking for places in Canada.

All of our household items came to our new place at the end of November, and Mr. Taffy arrived full time mid January. It is SO wonderful to see him every day! We have picked up our newlywed/nesting phase where we left off in December 2009, and have had a great time cooking, baking and relaxing together. So much so that we haven’t completely unpacked yet.

It has been great to use all of my baking items again! (we didn’t cook or bake much on weekends together while I was commuting).

Yum!!!

I hope you all will take a look once the recaps get restarted…it feels great to be blogging again.

Lots of love,

Mrs. Taffy

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Remember how I said we couldn’t make fruit preserves for our mason jars anymore? Then I started chasing bees? Well, I smartened up and went with something easy peasy for our favors: jelly beans!

It wasn’t an easy decision, though. I fought going the easy route at first and when I realized honey was too expensive. Then I started exploring lots of other ideas. I found these awesome heart-shaped whoopie pies on Etsy and got really addicted to the idea of having labels that said “Whoopie, we’re married,” like Mrs. Ribbons and Mrs. Hamster!

TickleMyTummy

However, when I added up the cost of ordering the number of pies we’d need, I realized it was going to be way too expensive!

I should also mention that I even started to contemplate the idea of making them myself, even though I’ve NEVER made a whoopie pie in my entire life, and then I woke up and realized this was all way too complicated for a bride just 5 weeks from her wedding!

During a crisis call to Mr. Brooch, he calmly suggested jelly beans, because our wedding is so close to Easter and, “it’ll be easy.” At first I totally blew him off because I have a thing for cute sayings and I didn’t think anything went with jelly beans. A few Google searches later, I came across a photo with the phrase: “Thank you for BEAN here with us!”

YES!

This might work! I got REALLY excited and asked Mama Brooch to pick up some jelly beans from the store just so I could see how they’d look in my mason jars. She walked in my place that night with a bag of the most perfect-colored beans: yellow, green, and pink! Our colors!

I loved the way the our jars looked, but the real test was whether I could stomach the jelly beans. I’m not the biggest bean fan and I felt weird giving out favors even I wouldn’t eat. To my surprise these SPREE jelly beans turned out DELICIOUS!! So much so that they are currently ruining my pre-wedding diet!!

After tasting them, loving them, and seeing how bright and beautiful the jar looked, I began adhering fabric to the tops of each jar and playing around with cute labels on the computer.

I decided I am not going to use the green ribbon you see in these pictures. It’s difficult to tie in a bow and I thought twine would be way cuter! Yay! I’ve always wanted to incorporate twine into our wedding somehow. I just ordered a bunch last week and can’t wait to see how it looks. This is our mock up:

For about $30 worth of jelly beans we got about 30 mason jars full! We need more, but I’m pretty happy with the direction these are headed. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on favors because I heard there’s usually a lot left behind. I really love the pop of color and how perfectly they match  everything else, and I’m super happy we found a way to incorporate our mason jars!

Does your wedding fall near a holiday? Are you taking advantage of any holiday decor/favors?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.